WHEEL OF FORTUNE: Zack Wheeler will be making his much-anticipated first start for Mets Tuesday in Atlanta. Photo: AP

Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler have been mentioned in tandem as being the keys to the Mets’ future.

Harvey has exceeded expectations in his 24 starts, showing he has the stuff to be an ace in Flushing for years to come. He has also set the bar really high for Wheeler, who is expected to make his debut Tuesday during a doubleheader in Atlanta with Harvey starting the other game.

“Young guys like this are competitive. You want to be the best. Is he going to be competing with the other team, as well as Harvey? Yeah, there’ll be a little of that,” said SNY studio analyst Bobby Ojeda.

“Everyone wants to be the best pitcher on the staff, you just do. You want to come in and impress. Where it can be troublesome is when he’s not pitching and a starting pitcher has a lot of down time, a lot of time for his mind to wander, to tighten him up. That’s the challenge.”

Ojeda knows of what he speaks. The Mets staff he joined in 1986 included a staff of 20-somethings — Dwight Gooden, Sid Fernandez, Ron Darling, Rick Aguilera — all at or approaching their primes as they helped pitch the team to a World Series. The expectations for this current bunch are slightly less extravagant — avoiding 100 losses, as opposed to winning 100 games.

But it doesn’t diminish the pressure on Wheeler, who has been highly touted since the Mets acquired him from the Giants for Carlos Beltran on July 11, 2011. With so little to cheer for in the present, fans are hoping to embrace a future powered by Harvey, Wheeler and Jon Niese. And it makes a downtrodden season more bearable as Harvey’s starts have become the one thing to look forward to in 2013.

“It’s very important, especially with a young arm. You have one in Harvey and one in Niese. If [Wheeler] can come up and do well, fans can look at it like we have three starters, but this guy is potentially part of the future,” Ojeda said. “When things aren’t going well, fans want to be able to say, ‘Hey, look at what we have coming.’ And it’s not hype, it’s not smoke and mirrors. It’s not spin. So it’s important that he comes up here and does well. He won’t look at it like that, but externally, yeah.”

And what can we expect? The hard-throwing righty has had an up-and-down season in Triple-A, going 4-1 with a 4.14 ERA going into his start last night for the Las Vegas 51s.

“He’s got a very fluid delivery, a great turn that hides the ball very well, those are the things that are hard to teach and he already has those in his pocket,” Ojeda said. “He’s got a great fastball and great secondary stuff. There’s tremendous potential there with him. … What is impressive is all the strikeouts.

“When I look at a guy I want to see a lot of strikeouts. But typical of young guys, he’ll lose command of the fastball and he’ll tend to overthrow. That’s something that he’s done down there.”